1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus applied to a surveillance camera apparatus, for example. More specifically, the present invention relates to an image recording apparatus which records an image signal of a photographed object onto a recording medium such as a hard disk in a compressed state.
2. Description of the prior art
With respect to a generally-used method of recording image signals into a recording medium, there is an FAT (File Allocation Table) system. In this system, a data area and a management area are formed within a recording medium, and the data area is finely divided into unit recording zones each of which is called a cluster. The image signal is recorded into the data area in clusters, and link information (management information) indicating how the clusters to which the image signal are recorded is linked is recorded into the management area. Therefore, even if the image signal is recorded into vacant clusters sporadically distributed due to a repetition of recordings and erasures, it is possible to appropriately reproduce the image signal based on the link information in the management area.
However, in a conventional FAT system, a cluster size is smaller than a frame size the image signal, and the image signal of each frame is recorded into a plurality of clusters. Therefore, if the link information of the cluster is destructed, it is not possible to reproduce the image signal.